Ancestry.com updated its collection of
U.S. Marine Corps Muster Rolls. This
collection, which contains records from 1798 to 1958, now contains
more than 39 million records. They include muster rolls (regular
lists of those present in a given unit),
unit diaries and personnel rosters.

The National Archives at San Francisco has officially opened to the
public more than 40,000 Alien
Files or A-Files on immigrants to the United States. The case
files were originally created at immigration offices in San
Francisco; Honolulu; Reno, Nevada; Agana, Guam; American Samoa and
other US territories. The records were transferred to
the National Archives from US Citizenship and Immigration Services
in 2009. Millions more A-files will eventually be opened to
the public—the files are closed for 100 years after the birth date
of the person named in the records.

A DNA study of Melungeons—a dark-skinned, mixed-heritage group historically residing in
Appalachia—has found genetic evidence that
these families descend from sub-Saharan
African men and white women of northern or central European
origin. Researchers think the population mixing could have
happened among black and white indentured servants in mid-1600s
Virginia.